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Three New Sitcoms For You to Ignore

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Pontius Pirate
For years, Pontius was a model citizen generously overpaying for TV companies to show him ads between reruns for shows
… [More]he never liked. But then, like Walter White, he just broke bad. These days Pontius Pirate is beholden to no man's TV schedule. He sails the content seas under the skull and crossbones committing daily acts of piracy. In this version of 'drag the net,' the names have been changed to protect the guilty. [Less]

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Ahoy! Pontius returns with his pertinent perceptions of a panoply of pilfered programming for the new season.

Three shows which you are bound to ignore and which may or may not get to air a full season despite the prodigious amount of money already spent on production and promotion.

I’m guessing that most of these shows will turn up at some point on HOT or YES, but I simply don’t care. Paid TV is for squares. The cool kids are already ignoring these shows as soon as they appear on US TV.

Trophy Wife is about a young blonde woman who becomes the third wife of a successful lawyer with a complicated family.

Lawyer-husband has a coupla teens with first wife, a successful doctor. Lawyer-husband has an adopted Chinese son with second wife, a flaky hippie chick. Trophy wife is thrust into this hilarious dynamic and blah de blah blah.

It’s a shame actually, because the cast is mostly aces. Malin Åkerman is funny and charismatic as Trophy Wife. At this point in her career, she’s like a less scary Cameron Diaz.

Bradley Whitford plays the lawyer-husband and who doesn’t love Bradley Whitford? I love Bradley Whitford. To be fair, I loved him more when he was still married to Jane Kaczmarek because she’s de-lovely and I have worshipped her dimples since she was on The Paper Chase… but I digress. Bradley Whitford is in this show and he’s good.

First wife is played by Academy Award winner, Marcia Gay Harden who is, frankly, just picking up a paycheck.

The pilot was amusing enough although I understand they’ve recast one of the kids since then. It’s like Modern Family with extra divorce.

Jews. On TV. It’s such a genius idea, I can’t understand why no one ever thought of it before. Fortunately for us, this guy who grew up in the 80s called Adam Goldberg came up with The Goldbergs, a sitcom about a family called the Goldbergs where the youngest child is called Adam and it takes place, wait for it, in the 80s. Truly the complexities of the human imagination are beyond our means to explain.

I actually had kind of a soft spot for The Goldbergs. It’s about a Jewish boy who turns 16 in 1985 with an older sister and a younger brother. Let’s just say I can relate. It’s also unbearably shrill with added shriek.

On the positive side there’s George Segal. On the negative side there’s everybody else.

Pontius Points: 1 dusty menorah (to be dug out for a Very Special Xmas episode) out of 5

The Michael J. Fox Show stars beloved celebrity Michael J. Fox as beloved celebrity Michael Henry. Five years ago Michael Henry quit his job as a New York anchor after his Parkinson’s caused his chair to slide out of shot while delivering the news. It’s one of several devastating jokes at his disease’s expense that make the show genuinely interesting.

When Michael’s daughter is trying to get extra credit for an inspirational video project she tells him to look helpless and “shake it up a little”.

The Michael J. Fox Show, as the title suggests, is more than a little meta. In the second episode Michael meets his new foxy neighbor, Kelly, played by Tracy Pollan, aka Mrs. Michael J. Fox. To prove to his onscreen wife that he doesn’t fancy his real wife, Michael sets up Kelly/Tracy with his colleague, Bunk. Then when Bunk and Tracy/Kelly start to hit it off, jealous Michael accurately throws a bread roll at Bunk’s crotch and delivers my nomination for best line of the year, “Oops, Parkinson’s.”

Eventually the show turns a little sweet, but there’s enough unexpected bite and a firm network commitment to air 22 episodes to keep me coming back.

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